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wy4tt · Dec 2, 2003, 01:53 AM

ok. this is a really dumb question, but how can i burn onto a cd-rw in panther without erasing what's already on the disc? i get the "disc cannot be modified" message. should i get software for this type of burning? any help would be greatly appreciated. and if this is in the wrong forum, i apologize...still learning what's software and part of osx.

phantomo · Dec 2, 2003, 08:17 PM

From what I gathered, OS X itself only burn single session discs. For muti session discs, you can use Toast.

Here is another possible solution.
http://www.osxfaq.com/Press/05-15-02/burn-05-15-02.ws

wy4tt · Dec 2, 2003, 08:40 PM

great, thanks phantomo. i'll try out the beta later tonight.

JKT · Dec 3, 2003, 06:18 AM

OS X can burn multi-session disks, but not from the Finder - you need to use Disk Utility (Disc Copy in Jag and earlier) to do it.

Open Disk Utility and then Disk Utility Help from its Help menu.

In Help Viewer, under the "Erasing and formatting disks and discs" heading there is a section on "Recording on a CD or DVD more than once". This tells you how to do it.

Be aware that multi-session burns to a CD will cause a new disk image to be created so that when you insert the physical CD, you will see a CD-image on your desktop for every single session you burned to it.

Edit: That is, the new data isn't simply appended to the previous burn... it is created as an entirely new session on the disk.

phantomo · Dec 3, 2003, 07:31 AM

Thanks, JKT, it is really there.

Learn something new everyday.

Sorry to wy4tt for giving you inaccurate information.

Keda · Dec 3, 2003, 08:27 AM

Are these cross-platform compatible? I seem to remember hearing that Mac and Windows handled this differently.

JKT · Dec 3, 2003, 08:52 AM

Originally posted by Keda:
Are these cross-platform compatible? I seem to remember hearing that Mac and Windows handled this differently.

To be honest I couldn't say if they are readable on a PC or not. I would imagine so. However, they won't be writable (other than via an erase and reformat if they are CD-RW). The third party software that you use to burn in Windows such as EasyCD Creator (not the default MS stuff in XP as that doesn't even allow multi-sessions IIRC) can support packet-writing (I think that is what it is called), which allows you to use the CD as if it was a floppy - any documents that are changed on the CD are overwritten with the new version instead of being added as a second version to the disk. OS X doesn't have this capability AFAIK... maybe Toast allows it, but probably not??

FWIW, the PC disks that are created in that way are readable on the Mac.

wy4tt · Dec 3, 2003, 07:57 PM

Originally posted by phantomo:
Thanks, JKT, it is really there. Learn something new everyday.

Sorry to wy4tt for giving you inaccurate information.

no worries. i appreciate the help. i tried out the beta session burner, and it worked well. it is readable in xp, but unwriteable (at least with nero).